Oil companies launch awarenessdrive on giving up LPG subsidy

Kerala LPG consumers’ aversion towards Give-It-Up subsidy scheme has prompted oil companies to jointly organise awareness campaigns in its favour.

The Centre’s Give-It-Up scheme, which was introduced in March, has so far received a lukewarm response in Kerala with a meagre participation of 18,800 customers as of today from all the three PSU oil companies against the 76 lakh domestic LPG subscriber base.

This is negligible when compared to the all India figure of 12.38 lakh subscribers who voluntarily came forward to surrender their LPG subsidy ever since its national launch, T Satish Kumar, Deputy General Manager (LPG), Indian Oil Corporation, said.

The intention of the new initiative is to encourage more customer participation. However, the government could save approximately ₹2.8 crore as subsidy component, he said.

“We are now reaching out to affluent customers such as celebrities, noted personalities, professionals, civil servants through SMS requesting them to forgo their LPG subsidy”, he said, citing the recent initiative taken by Malayalam film actor Suresh Gopi in giving up his cooking gas subsidy.

Indian Oil Corporation has a subscriber base of 40 lakh in Kerala and of this, only 8,215 opted for the scheme. With 22.6 lakh customers, BPCL had received requests so far from 4,414 persons, while HPCL at 6,164.

The company has plans to promote campaigns through newspapers, TV channels, and distributor networks requesting clients to give up their LPG subsidies. “We would be expecting one per cent of the total 76 lakh LPG subscribers opting for the scheme when the campaigns gather momentum”, Kumar said.

However, he reminded that giving up LPG subsidy is not life-long and customers could retain it any time in the next fiscal with a request to the distributor, which will be processed by the concerned oil company.